Silencing the Scream
by paynesgrey
Summary: He fights the void in his dreams, and she brings him back. Miroku x Sango. ONESHOT.


AN: Written for MiroSanta on tumblr for Starzki. This is a oneshot and will not be continued.

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Silencing the Scream

He can't even hear his own breath.

The void wraps around him like stifling cloak, trapping him in utter darkness.

He's been here before, returning to the soundless space in an endless spiral the moment he closes his eyes. He can feel the encroaching blackness seep into his ears, stealing the sound around him and liquifying the air in his lungs.

 _So this is where I go when the void in my hand envelopes me,_ he thinks. He's frightened, always, at the first realization, and then he feels the frigid cold, letting it sneak into his bones. The fear begins to feel like an old friend, a companion that he's carried since he was a child and the void opened up in his hand - forever cursing him.

When he dreams, he returns here, the darkness singing to him like a siren's song.

Awake, he fights it. He fights to save himself, but sometimes he wants to give up and give in to the shadowed lover that whispers to him in his dream, a turbulent screaming wind that is swirling in the palm of his hand.

On the more hopeful side, he strives forward to someday defeat Naraku, to rid him of the curse and the darkness that waits for him, biding time and filling him with a cold, unending dread.

At first, he searches for Naraku to lift the curse that cost both his grandfather and father their lives. Unwilling to share the same fates, Miroku finds purpose in his hunt for the demon. What else does he have to fight for other than for his family legacy and his own life?

Then, she comes along. Long dark hair, taut muscles, sharp words and a wounded heart. Naraku has caused Sango pain too - so much pain that Miroku wonders if he really has anything to complain about. Yet, he knows they are in this fight together, even if she doesn't want to share it with him yet. She hesitates, he knows, and he doesn't blame her. There's so much uncertainty in in their futures, and ever since he's started fighting _because of her_ , the darkness in his hand has screamed louder - as if it senses its hold over him wavering now that Miroku has a brighter purpose.

Thus, the dreams, the visions, and the closer they come to Naraku, they all become worse - desperate and more harrowing like a thick weight on his skull and his cursed arm. The burden of his curse tries to get between them - as if Naraku knows that he can lose, that his curse can be circumvented with Miroku's faith in his friends - and his care for Sango.

Each day Miroku wonders if he wakes, will it be the day his hand swallows him whole, fulfilling the blasted curse and ending his mission forever? Will the curse rob him of the chance to finally have some happiness, or even a life with Sango as he hopes?

Resolve keeps him going during his waking hours, but it does not erase the fear that finds him in his dreams. Sleep is sometimes a challenge for him, and he's had to meditate in order to keep his demons at bay - to have some respite among the howling winds that haunt him.

Though, sometimes when he sleeps, he wakes in the morning to curious eyes of his companions - even Inuyasha. They say nothing out of respect, for which his is grateful. He wonders if they hear him crying in his sleep, feeling his own end dip into the murky void that waits for him. He checks his fingers sometimes, to see if he has clawed at the dirt on the ground to keep the darkness from dragging him to hell.

But his friends are kind. He knows they all have their nightmares. They all have their stains from Naraku.

Sango, however, understands him the most. She does not always admit it, but he knows they share a silent bond. They both have as many nightmares thanks to Naraku. They both have doomed fates if they do not fight.

And as closed off as Sango is, Miroku is often times surprised when he encounters her tenderness. He knows she is not heartless - guarded, yes - but she is kind and he knows that without this tragedy molding her, she is a lovely lady underneath the grit and blood.

He feels her touch. She's tapping his shoulder, a soft warm pull as his body breaks free from the cement in the void. He opens his eyes - her voice a goddess's song that brings him hope.

A bold, yet light caress traces down his cursed hand, and he feels the urge to grab her fingers, holding her in a vice grip and never let go. Sango. His life line.

"Houshi-sama," she whispers lightly, and he turns over in his bedding and looks into her face. He feels tears drying on his cheeks.

"Sango," he says in raspy voice. Her concerned eyes ask him more than her words.

"I'm fine," he says. "Just another…" His words trail off.

"I know," she says, sighing and pulling back from him. Immediately, he misses her touch. He watches her as she looks up into the stars. "It's the same for me."

Miroku rolls over and props his head up to stare at her. "If anything, I think you saved me. In my dream. I was being swallowed by the void."

She looks down at him and an eyebrow lifts. "How did I save you? In your dream?"

He hesitates and pulls away from her gaze. He stares past her, into the inky dark forest that could be mistaken for a void itself. Finally he meets her curious eyes again. "You were...simply there. By my side."

She says nothing, but his eyes have adjusted enough under the starlight to see a faint color change on her cheeks. He can almost feel the heat radiating off her, catching them both in this intimate moment. Miroku will do anything to hold onto moments like these, with her next to him, her concern a warm comfort on a cold, unkind night.

"Is that all?" she asks, and he loves when he hears humor touching her voice.

"That's all," he says softly, "Just you fighting beside me. Nothing else can save my doomed existence." And he reaches out and lightly takes her hand. He expects her to resist, but she doesn't.

They fall into a comfortable silence, fingers entwined, with the quiet stars as their only audience. And as Miroku feels Sango's warmth in his hand, the screaming curse subsides for a moment - temporarily tamed into submission by the beating of two determined hearts.

END


End file.
